As mentioned in our President’s last post, WCIU is working in partnership with Dr. Viv Grigg. Viv developed a Master’s Program in Transformational Urban Leadership (MATUL) at another University, and we are drawing on Viv's expertise within our faculty and course work. While we are not launching this program within WCIU at present, we do want to give you a little sneak peek into the history of, heart behind, and glimpses of what makes up MATUL and Viv's thinking. Viv's expertise and experiences are already shaping us as a faculty and we look forward to more! So, without further ado, here is an update from Dr. Viv Grigg.

The genesis of the MA in Transformational Urban Leadership was 22 consultations with pastors in the slums in the 1990's. In 2002 we gathered leaders of works from around the world in Brazil and shared our training experiences - training in suffering and sacrifice, action-reflection-based, apprenticeship models. We realized that no seminary would help us get the seminary into the slum, so determined to do it together. In 2004 we structured the MA, while grassroots training continued to multiply with learning networks. Then we launched in Manila, Chennai, Nairobi, and year by year in Kampala, Nagpur, Rio de Janeiro, and elsewhere (several failures) - each under indigenous structures, within national accreditations, each slightly different but with a common core.

Earlier this month, some leaders were here at WCIU, meshing with the launch process here, and grappling with how to develop a seamless process from grassroots to bachelors to masters’ degrees for workers among the 1.4 billion slum people, the 2 billion urban poor. This is in preparation for the annual gathering of the directors from each school in Cameroon this year next January. The Lord was present (thanks for your prayers) and we got four out of five breakthroughs with problems that have seemed intractable for some time. We have 30,000 Pentecostal pastors in Ugandan slums and rural villages who are being asked to get degrees. This is amazing! Will you join us in prayer as we seek wisdom and strategy on how to best respond to this request and work toward establishing an Urban Training Center there? Here are some specific points for prayer:

● Please pray for three educators who could go to Uganda for three months in assist in educational research.

● Please pray for someone to go help our MATUL Ugandan grassroots trainer set up an Urban training Center and get it accredited.

● Please pray for a couple of people to help with editing, videoing, and admin for the MATUL Commission in Yaounde in January who are fluent in both English and French.